436 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
smoothly carved and has a fragment of sky-blue glass inlaid to repre- 
sent the left eye and a bit of iron pyrites for the right. The flukes 
have been split wholly off and fastened on with a lashing of narrow 
whalebone passing through a vertical hole in the “small” and round 
the edge of the flukes. The flukes themselves have been split across 
and appear to have been doweled together. This shows that the 
owner attached considerable value to the object, or he would not have 
taken the trouble to mend it when another could have been so easily 
whittled out. In the middle of the belly is an oblong cavity, contain- 
ing something which probably adds greater power to the charm. What 
this is can not be seen, asa band of sealskin with the hair shaved off 
has been shrunk on round the hinder half of the body and secured by a 
seam on the right side. A double turn of sinew braid is knotted 
round the middle of 
the body, leaving 
two ends which are 
tied together in a 
loop, showing that 
this object was 
meant to beattached 
somewhere about 
the person. 
To this class also 
probably belong the 
skins or pieces of 
animals worn as am- 
wlets, probably with a view of obtaining the powers of the particular 
animal, as in so many cases in the stories related in Rink’s Tales and 
Traditions. We frequently saw men wearing at the belt bunches of 
the claws of the bear or wolverine, or the metacarpal bones of the 
wolf! The head or beak of the gull or raven? is also a common personal 
amulet, and one man wore a small dried flounder.* 
We collected a number of these animal amulets to be worn on the 
person, but only sueceeded in learning the special purpose of one 
of them, No. 89532 [1507], from Utkiavwin, which was said to be 
intended to give good luck in deer hunting. It is a young unbranched 
antler of a reindeer, 6 inches long, and apparently separated from the 
skull at the “bur,” with the “ velvet” skin still adhering, though most 
of the hair is worn off except at the tip. A bit of sinew is tied round 
the base. 
Fig. 423.—Ancient whale amulet, of wood. 
No. 89522 [1573], from Utkiavwin, is an amulet consisting of the last 
‘Parry mentions bones of the wolverine worn as amulets at Fury and Hecla’s Strait (second voyage, 
p- 497). 
?Compare the Greenland story told by Rink (Tales, etc., p. 195), when the man who has a gull for 
his amulet is able to fly home from sea because the gull seeks his prey far out at sea, while the one 
whose amulet is a raven can not, because this bird seeks his prey landward. Such an amulet as the 
latter would probably be chosen with a view to making a man a successful deer hunter. 
’Compare the Greenland story, where a salmon amulet makes a man too slippery to be caught by 
his pursuers. (Rink Tales, ete., p. 182.) 
